Review – Family fun at Shrek’s Adventure, London

I just took our 5 and 9 year old to Shrek’s Adventure. What fun!
Fans of Shrek, Puss in Boots, or How to Train your Dragon will love this interactive experience, located at the Southbank in London.

I figured this was a good post to write, in order to share the nuts and bolts of going to Shrek with all you potential visitors, as I found it difficult to get any real information online about what was involved or what to expect at Shrek’s Adventure. In fact the best information I got was from speaking to a mum in the gift shop, who had just come out of Shrek’s adventure with her children. She raved about it, but she did also explain that it was quite dark in places and also a fair amount of standing around was involved. So I knew immediately that I wouldn’t be bringing our 3 year old just yet! He doesn’t like the dark or standing around, much! (In case you’re wondering what I was doing lurking about in the gift shop, I was hiding from torrential rain, on a separate visit I made to the Southbank with the kids.) I probably would recommend not bringing any children younger than age 4, and the experience is ideal for age 6 and up.

First things first, you can enjoy this experience if you haven’t seen the films. But, if you do have access to some Shrek DVDs or online streaming then consider getting the kids to watch one of the films before going as it does help enhance the experience. Our daughter really got into Puss in Boots, in the name of research!

Next thing to note: BOOK IN ADVANCE! Especially if you are going on the weekend, and even if you have Merlin passes, don’t risk going without a booking. If you have Merlin passes it costs £1 per person and you can do it on their website, I think it is worth it though to avoid disappointment.

Also to note, if you book a particular time and end up getting there early, they might let you in early – it worked for us anyway.

So now that’s all out of the way, what exactly goes on in there??

Well, I won’t ruin it too much…but in essence you go through a series of rooms, each one hosted by a different character from one of the films who will keep you all entertained for about 5-10 minutes. The acting was very good and nobody broke character for even a moment. There are some really cool special effects too. And the whole walk-through begins with a “bus ride”. This was my favourite bit and lasts approximately 10 minutes too. You wear 3D glasses on the ride. The bus does not actually leave the room, or move, but it feels like it does as you are surrounded by 3 walls that have moving 3D images. It’s quite magical and the kids loved it. I must say, if you are prone to motion sickness you can get around this by taking the glasses off, but if it’s only mild and you want to try keeping the glasses on…just don’t go too soon after lunch! I kept the glasses on as I didn’t want to miss anything, but I had just had a big bowl of tasty food from Giraffe, and I felt a little queasy for a moment there!

The whole experience lasts about 80 minutes. There wasn’t really any queuing involved, except for maybe 5 minutes at the start. At the end just before the gift shop there is the opportunity to take your own photos of yourselves with the real life-size Shrek (someone in costume), a member of staff can take the photo for you using your camera, and they have various setups of other characters to take photos with. They do also take your photo at various points around the experience and you can buy a book containing these photos printed out and placed in an activity album if you wish (we didn’t purchase this).

Ah bless him, I was surprised that my 5 year old was fine with most of it! But it’s a good point that the special effects are that realistic and the lights do go off at times, which let’s face it can be quite scary for an imaginative child!

Lol! Thanks for the comment, it’s a nice reminder to me to enjoy hanging out with the kids while they are small even if it is a challenge at times. Hope you can find a little companion or persuade one of your teens to join you!